An interesting historical story.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a poet and an opium addict. One day in 1797, he went to sleep under the influence, after having read about Kubla Khan’s palace at Zanadu. When he awoke, he began to feverishly copy down a poem he had dreamed. It began with the famous line: Read more…
In the middle of his dramatic victory in the Battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Horatio Nelson was shot by a French sniper and mortally wounded. Nelson was carried below deck while the battle raged. The captain of the HMS Victory was able to come visit Nelson as he lay dying. Nelson Read more…
Mozart once bet fellow composer Haydn that he could not play a piano composition that Mozart had written that day. Haydn accepted the bet and sat down at the piano with the music in front of him. He started out well, but then reached a part of the composition Read more…
In 1632, Galileo published his Dialogue on Two Chief World Systems which supported the Copernican theory that the sun was the center of the Universe and the Earth moved around it. The book caught the attention of the Inquisition which summoned Galileo to Rome for trial. Under threat of torture, Read more…
John, besides being a rotten king, was a terrible human being. He attempted to sleep with any woman who caught his eye, even the wives of his nobles. Once while visiting the castle of Eustace de Vescy, he noticed that Eustace’s wife was beautiful and John decided he needed to Read more…
Frederick the Great was known for the strict discipline in his army. When his army was on the march, he ordered that all fires and lights be extinguished by a certain hour. One night he was walking through his camp after the curfew and saw a light in a Read more…
I ran across this today and wanted to share it. I have added it to my 1970’s page. Some of the facts are shocking! THINGS WOMEN COULD NOT DO IN 1971 women could not get a credit card without your husband’s signature – it was not until 1974 that a Read more…
THE MOUSE, THE BIRD, THE FROG, AND THE ARROWS Around 512 B.C., Persian Emperor Darius was attempting to conquer the kingdom of the Scythians. The two armies arrived at the battlefield late in the day, too late to do battle that day. It was understood that the battle would Read more…
When the artist Raphael was working on his Vatican frescoes, two pompous Cardinals came to see the paintings. When they sniffed that one of the faces of an Apostle was too reddish, Raphael responded: “He blushes to see into whose hands the Church has fallen.” – Hume 77
We are now in September and I will start to post more frequently. Most of the posts are going to be anecdotes from World History, as opposed to American History. The web site already has a wealth of American History anecdotes from the post-Civil War period. You can access them Read more…